China's power generating capacity rose 20.3 percent from 2005 to 622 gigawatts last year, said the China Electricity Council (CEC) on Thursday.

China produced 2,834.4 billion kilowatt-hour in 2006, up 13.5 percent from a year ago and consumed 2,824.8 billion kw-hour with a year-on-year growth of 14 percent.

China's power supply tension was further relieved in 2006, according to the circular released by the CEC, the industrial association of China's electricity enterprises.

China's coal-fired power installed capacity rose by 23.7 percent from a year ago to 484 gws in 2006, while the installed capacity of hydropower was up 9.5 percent to 128.6 gws.

The proportion of coal-fired power in the total installed capacity of China rose by 2.15 percent in 2005 with hydropower down 2.03 percent, making the country's power supply structure more unbalanced, said the CEC.

North China's Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region, southwestern Yunnan Province and eastern Shandong Province were the top three provinces whose installed capacity rose by over 30 percent in 2006.

The manufacturing sector remains the top power consumer of the country, with its total power consumption rising 14.3 percent to 2,135.4 billion kw-hour in 2006.

The heavy industry consumed 1,702.1 billion kw-hour with a year-on-year growth of 15.4 percent. The growth is 0.14 percent lower than in 2005.

Power consumption of the light industry rose by 11.9 percent to 413.3 billion kw-hour. The growth is 1.87 percent higher than a year ago.

The service sector consumed 282.2 billion kw-hour, up 11.8 percent from 2005, while power consumption by households rose by 14.7 percent to 324 billion kw-hour.

China's GDP growth continued to grow at around 10 percent in 2006. The government has been striving to turn the investment- and trade-driven economy to a more sustainable model that would be less greedy for energy.

(Xinhua News Agency January 12, 2007)